Carney is like a graveyard where everyone already owns their plots and has built houses on top of them.

It demeans you to cover rotten meat with honey. I know what I am. What would you want with a monster?" "Everything.

You don't have to protect these people, Cassel." I am these people.

He runs to the sink to spit it out. I grin. There’s nothing quite as funny as someone else’s misery.

But now I wonder--what if everyone is pretty much the same and it's just a thousand small choices that add up to the person you are? No good or evil, no black and white, no inner demons or angels whispering the right answers in our ears like it's some cosmic SAT test. Just us, hour by hour, minute by minute, day by day,making the best choices we can. The thought is horrifying. If that's true, then there's no right choice. There's only choice.

It is my belief that books are living things.

There are no words for how much I will miss her, but I try to kiss her so that she'll know. I try to kiss her to tell her the whole story of my love, the way I dreamed of her when she was dead, the way that every other girl seemed like a mirror that showed me her face. The way my skin ached for her. The way that kissing her made me feel like I was drowning and like I was being saved all at the same time. I hope she can taste all that, bittersweet, on my tongue.